We caught up with Faber at a Ministry of Education event this morning which was held to launch the local availability of a service called EBSCO.
That is a Publishing group which hosts an electronic service for students and researchers which compiles 40,000 full text publications from over 14 different EBSCO databases. These include indexing, abstracts and full text for thousands of journals in biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion and theology to name a few subject areas.
Unlimited access will be provided to all the schools, libraries and citizens. Faber says you can access it right at home on your internet!
Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"EBSCO is now available in Belize, and this is one of the search databases that is used across the world - in many Universities, one of the larger one that can be accessed. And what is happening here today is that the Government of Belize is making this available to every single member of the Belizean population, every member. Every person who lives in this country, who can make their way to a library, or who has internet access in their homes, or who can utilize the services in a school, can access the EBSCO database, can research journal articles, can research magazines for a number of years, can access to all of this now, so that they can use it as a basis of coming up with good, solid research that can be used to develop our nation of Belize. This is unprecedented. They will not have to pay for it. The Government pays one subscription, and once you sign up, you can log in at the centers, at home, or wherever you have internet access. That is a tremendous accomplishment, and I think that nobody can argue with that."
EBSCO will also provide on-site training to help schools and libraries navigate the huge database.
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